ARMORIAL DEVICES (TO MY FATHER, ROBERT ROY DOUGLAS IN MEMORIUM, D. APRIL 7 2002)

 

ARMORIAL DEVICES (TO MY FATHER, ROBERT ROY DOUGLAS IN MEMORIUM, D. APRIL 7 2002)

Armorial devices

Under pale moonlight

Shone through the windows of a dream

Stained glass, come to pass

Oh who has pulled the sword from the stone

Christ, of the miseries, of the cordial of the broken heart

Why do we fight so far apart

Ranged on a field under pale moonlight

Never coming it seems it seems

To any decisive victory

Still the heavenly host wage on

You with your quill, and I with my song

And the clouds under pale moonlight roil

Battles only invisibly won

Phantom angelic,

Blindly we see

It must be the Saviour

Who else could it be

Leaving us

So less alone.

Pulling again

The sword from the stone.

mary angela douglas 7 april 2024

WE TURN TO MOURN

 

WE TURN TO MOURN

You step through

Even without knowing how

Into a landscape

Of ruined angelic statuary

Careful of the broken pieces

Smashed, the crockery of God

Only farther off than His most gauzy nebulae

He is safe from our conjectures

About whether He cares enough or not

I know unexpected tenderness

Is not a lie

If we are broken

He is broken too

And weeps in vast corners and wakes

The gestures of faint Spring

The ointment of the sun

Let us console

The inner landscapes

The angels with chipped wings

The devastation of everything we loved

That once was beautiful

We turn to mourn;

The roses blown apart.

Somehow, still singing,

One bird in the tree of the heart.

nary angela douglas 6 april 2024

BEAUTIFUL DISASTER, LIFE

 

BEAUTIFUL DISASTER, LIFE

Beautiful disaster, life

Still we are fortunate to be

Where we may have never been

If not for Thee, beautiful disaster,

Catastrophe

Bridge falling out of the sky

Still you will catch us up,

By the remaining hem of our

Never abandoning angels

Oh Interpreter most Vast

With all your never ending storied stars

Without a luminous,  Word

But what we dream, however faintly inside

From your slightest imprint

Saving us past  the floods And held:

cloud high above 

the rainbowed, receding waters.

mary angela douglas 6 april 2024

ONE DAY IT WILL NOT BE THIS COLD

 

ONE DAY IT WILL NOT BE THIS COLD

The moment will pass like a wave

You will burrow yourself in the green gold curve of it

You will not be wounded

The moment will pass like a cloud

You will hide in the clefts of the rocks

With your one geranium pot on the window sill

And sing to yourself in the language of starlight

One day it will not be this cold

And the frost on the quilts will melt

And the strict meter of the glacial music

Will pass forever into dark blue silence

mary angela douglas 5 april 2024

ST. LOUIS, 1971

 

ST. LOUIS, 1971

For Debbie Burton Linhorst, in eternal friendship and joy

I was catholic in that hour

Because it was September

And every singed leaf was

Singing to me in the white gold light

And fluttering at my feet

Its own unique epiphany, fireworks display

And feasts of invisible splendor

Sprung up and I read Marguerite, are you

Grieving, but all I could feel was a fine catholic rapture

And the scholastics edged in a bright unravaging fire

Of very light and the quaking trees

Along the blazing boulevards of St. Louis.

mary angela douglas 5 april 2024

SAIL ON OH DIVINE TIN SOLDIER

 

 

SAIL ON OH DIVINE TIN SOLDIER

Sail on oh divine tin soldier

In your paper ship

Stalwart as it may only be in dreams

With your steadfast gaze

Enduring everything

Sail on through the gutters

And at the will of the wind, the rain

Seeking lost refrains

And mercy at the least

Strange are the tides that sweep you overboard

Yet you persist

Yet you still shine

At the end of the story

Very near, sublime.

mary angela douglas 3 april 2024

FROM THE GOOSE GIRL TENDING HER GEESE

 

FROM THE GOOSE GIRL TENDING HER GEESE

How could we imagine a perilous journey

dreaming among the flowering peach

dreaming more than drifting

dreaming as if flying

here below on earth

as if in a peach sky

it's not that far back to reach

to china blue skies

to the Christmas frescoes 

painted on stamps

the letters sealed in gold foil.

who will take my letter to the king

on scrap paper, longing to be read

let angels appear

oh even just one

dressed in an otherworldly pink

and kneeling before the Madonna

with strange ornaments of gold

to You in the Heavens

from the goose girl tending her geese.

mary angela douglas 4 april 2024

DOLL CARRIAGES

DOLL CARRIAGES 

Such memories are so etched

Who can say why

You remember even the shadows of trees

On the sidewalks, how the sun diamonded through

The trees and you were grateful for the shade

Strolling with your sister with your doll carriages

In front of that little house all dark spruce green

With its awnings, its delectable front porch

A rental, as the grandparents watched

You felt important ladies of the town

Serious mothers of the doll babies

Adjusting the little quilts and coverlets

That the children not catch cold

And if some others who really were mothers

Approached and said how is the baby doing today

Babies we may have said as we often gave several dolls

A ride at one time, it being, we thought, much more effective.

We’re getting them Fresh Air

Maybe we said.

And the air was really fresh back then

But why does one remember the sun and the wind

The shadows all El Greco lengthening and angular

On the sidewalks of the loved trees?

More than the dear faces who watched our progress

Let it rest there. The mind the   memory are quizzical

But we cannot query them

Only feel them like a kind of music

Drifting towards us,

Now and then.

Like the land of green ginger

We cannot summon

That just, descends

 mary angela douglas 2 april 2023

TIME WITH ITS APPLE TREES I STILL BELIEVE

 

TIME WITH ITS APPLE TREES I STILL BELIEVE

Time with its apple trees I still believe

Pink tufted cloudlets and hint of a breeze

Picture book lovely and picture book framed

Inside of a castle where I have arranged

Only to live with a raspberry cat

Only to think about this and not that

Indifferent to all but the winnowing sky

Content in the orchards

Of days gone by

Put cream on the berries

Put mist on the moors

Why should we wander

From beautiful shores.

What do you think

All our visions were for?

mary angela douglas 1 april 2024

CLINGING TO THE SUNFLOWER HOUR

 

CLINGING TO THE SUNFLOWER HOUR

Clinging to the sunflower hour

I make my case to still live in the sun

Until my sunflower clock is run

And on my stalk to smile and wave

At the unceasing bright parade

Of cornstalks under a Kansas sky.

Who am I to afford such glory

Even a field of sunflowers seen through a train window

Speeding by has caught In the honeyed lattice

Of my mind

And will not let me go from so many years ago

I am on sunflower time

Oh Lord, I plea in sunflower rhyme

Oh Lord of the sunflowers

Cherish me.

As you do them.

To have made them with such a cheering heart.

mary angela douglas 1 april 2024

SINGING THE RESTIVE SONG

 

SINGING THE RESTIVE SONG

There’s kind of a pale lemon haze

Over the city today

But we just get on the bus

Putting our trust in whatever

There’s a crimson trail from the jail

That the folksingers used to notice

But we are just paying bills grinding at mills

Or wanting to show this

Exhibit A in a casual way

At our show and tell

And it’s all going well

As we’re learning to spell

Except for the pale lemon haze

That’s over the city today

But we just tread on our way

To keep it a simple day

While the fog from we don’t know where

Miasma is filling the air

And the swamp gas green glints

Are moving in over the fence

Keep it moving along, long long

Try not to sing a restive song

Just go along with what they have planned

Keep falling asleep like trained little sheep

At your desk or machine ordering the paper reams

colour of goldenrod here come the people in pods

Or start over again

To pretend and pretend

You don’t really notice a thing.

mary angela douglas 1 april 2024

BALM

 

BALM

I will crush lime flowers with candula

Golden honey and balm of skies

Orange blossom winters and rose budded

Lotions

The lily salves,

That He may rise

Over the wounded earth be gathered

At the tomb of our True Love

Angels of mercy and consolation

For the Saviour, for our Dove.

There is the balm for the King of angels

There is the ointment gold and sweet

Here with my tears

I come to wash now

All the sorrow

From His Feet.

mary angela douglas 1 april 2024

IT IS STILL POSSIBLE TO FOCUS ON THE BEAUTIFUL PART OF THE PICTURE

 

IT IS STILL POSSIBLE TO FOCUS ON THE BEAUTIFUL PART OF THE PICTURE

It is still possible to focus on

The beautiful part of the picture

And why shouldn’t it be

When that is what we were made for originally

All things attest

That He has blessed

Those who wish to mar and jar

To count up faults and 

And make it hard

In working hours and schoolroom drives

For us to catch one breath of air

I’m telling you

I do not care

God made the world for truth and good

You cannot alter the enchanted wood.

You cannot halt the fleeting snow

The crystal cup of the early rose

This I have known from a child.

mary angela douglas 1 april 2024

SNOW CONE DAY

 

SNOW CONE DAY

The key lime, lime, key grandeur

Of the snow cone day

Came back to me in dreaming

Of a summer day

And blackberry beading

And cranberry sway

Held forth in crystal frothing

On the humid quay

Oh flavors made in heaven

Oh quenching happy crunch

Im only going to have snow cones

From now on in my lunch.

Mary angela douglas 1 april 2024

AT APRIL'S VERGE

 

AT APRIL’S VERGE

At April’s verge

Through all my years

I say in emeralds

Crystal clear

It’s April I longed most to be

Green as jade and full of shade

And soft and rippling

Water dipping

Out the gourd of beauty’s self

How could God give us such wealth

And birdsong most acutely felt.

Wreathe me a wreathe of all the flowers

April is my only dower

Madrigal most fitly sung

Refreshment to the heart;

And rung like a peal of bells so bright

Even in the midnight of the world.

mary angela douglas 31 march 2024

IN RETROSPECT

 

IN RETROSPECT

I stood and I looked behind at the road

Of brambles I had tread

And wondered how 

My feet could bleed

That much

And I not dead

I counted up the leaden loss

I weighed each mile and what it cost

How still I seemed to be

A little child at sea

All I had I gave to Thee

All I had I gave to Thee

even though, imperfectly.

mary angela douglas 31 march 2024

 

 

SUNG TO MY HEAVENLY FATHER ON A DAY I WAS HAPPY AGAIN

You sent me a Zodiac from the stars

Bright lemon and mauve from the moon

You sent me a bouquet of winds from the North

And the chill of the gold afternoons

Red gold presents you gave to me

In the melting of the sun

Rains perfumed like Araby

In tales of the Kingdom come

Violets in bunches down by the spring

Flashes of blue where the lightning stings

Hints of carmine, and saffron and green

and all that I can do

is sing it right back to You.

mary angela douglas 31 march 2024

A

WE WILL DRINK PURE WATER

 

WE WILL DRINK PURE WATER

We will drink pure water

Mirroring the skies

and be refreshed

and the splashing of many waters

will soothe all distress

and the citrus sun.

to be a child of the shade

to gather the shade into you as

though it were violets

this I will do

and drink orangeade

when the day is done.

Be like a lily

In the quiet vale

Where sadness pales to sheer nothing

Where what is dreamed is lived

And the place is simple to find.

mary angela douglas 29 march 2024

CUT TO THE QUICK AND BARELY STANDING GROUND

 

CUT TO THE QUICK AND BARELY STANDING GROUND

Cut to the quick and barely standing ground

Here is my general lamentation after the Fall

The battle does not end

Weary we lean like reeds by the river bank

He will not break

Though all other things may

Conspire to break us on the way

Thicker the shadows grow

And we feel undone.

Still there is the Son

Truly our Sun

The only one

Lighting up the formidable skies

Shepherd of shepherds

In our eyes

His sheltering lambs.

mary angela douglas 29 march 2024

GARCIA LORCA AND HIS GREEN WINDS

 

 

GARCIA LORCA AND HIS GREEN WINDS

Garcia Lorca and his green winds

His verdes vientos I remember when

I first heard the sound of them in his verse

The dream rush of beautiful winds on earth

Such dreamy tristeza such loveliness then

Startled me out of the mood I was in.

The pale moon is setting. The dawn rose one come.

No longer I feel what country I’m from.

It’s the country of sadness and beauty I tend

Garcia Lorca and his green winds…

mary angela douglas 29 march 2024

THOUGH I AM SMALL

 

 

THOUGH I AM SMALL

To God, my father in a time of dread

 

Though I am small

I know the king regards me

Though I am tiny

He sees me where others fail

Though I am little

He still made haste to heal me

Though I am negligible

To others

I cannot fail.

He is the King of Love

He is the King of Love

He is the King of love.

mary angela douglas 29 march 2024

 

SOMETIMES IT HELPS TO BE REMINDED

 

SOMETIMES IT HELPS TO BE REMINDED

Sometimes it helps to be reminded

Of the blue and green earth

Of its cooling waters

Of its emerald springs

Of the innocence of clouds

And tempestuous Aprils

Of the quickening to life

Of ancient stars still

Sending their light year poems to us

Of taking a deep breath

Of the perfume of trees

Their otherworldliness

Their roots gripping deep into the ground

And the earth laden with birdsong suspended in space

And still turning.

mary angela douglas 28 march 2024

SOMETIMES DISCONSOLATE

 

 

SOMETIMES DISCONSOLATE

Sometimes disconsolate the sweet bird flown

I conjure up old images and watch the sky

Impassive as a pearl

Never turning

Lucent are these days as well

And yet I cannot really tell

Time by the diffident turn of the wind

Articulation without leaves

The burden of the dreaming trees

I hear them sigh

And feel it as my own.

mary angela douglas 28 march 2024

I HAVE A PHANTOM FAMILY

 

 

I HAVE A PHANTOM FAMILY

I have a phantom family

At least of those that on earth remain

Who tell me not of funerals

Or of the long rains

Who act as though I were no leaf

Upon the family tree

Of weddings and of christenings

They hide the news from me

Should strangers ask for news of them

I say I cannot lie

Toward me this phantom family

Oh nothing will apprise.

And yet I love them

As I may

If only they could see

By ghosting me

They ghost themselves

A sorrow deep to me.

On Heaven’s shore

the radiant bloom

And there I hope to see

My brothers and my sisters

And comfort them

And feel

That there a new home

We will make

They wont ashamed be

Because I live

And plant my dream

In gentle poverty.

mary angela douglas 28 march 2024

 

 

THE LILTING WORD MUST CONFINE ITSELF TO CORNERS

 

 

THE LILTING WORD MUST CONFINE ITSELF TO CORNERS

The lilting word must confine itself to corners

Never the Light said in any storybook

Let it be scattered like gold across many waters

Let it unfold all roses, lilies, all things bright

We have garnered or stumbled on at greatest need

Never did the lilting word

Forsake the beauteous creed.

Let blue smoke from the chimney

In the picture of the schoolchildren

Billow and billow.

The shutters be green as green.

mary angela douglas 28 march 2024

 

AFTER HANS CHRISTIAN ANDERSEN THE WILD SWANS

 

AFTER HANS CHRISTIAN ANDERSEN THE WILD SWANS

Half sewn the final wing will shine

On the swan constellation

In dead winter

And Elise will rise vindicated

In a gown of green velvet, like the woods.

The nettles will bloom

There will be room for mercy

Beyond justice

The wounds salvaged beyond tears

For mercy beyond justice

Had shone beyond 300 years

When the spell was broken

The princes redeemed

The kings, worthy of their crowns

Cast into the sea of glass

Before The Christ.

mary angela douglas 28 march 2024

MY ARK HAD SPLINTERED

 

 

ARK

My ark had splintered

So it seemed to me

And covenants seemed lost at sea

And all my weeping comprised the Flood

As the dove returned with no branches.

What can it signify

Lord, my God

I feel so asunder

Who once was alive

I feel not bewept

But drifting here

What has become

Of the beautiful year

But light from the dark clouds

Rained down on me

Said, mercy, child. mercies

Are ever with thee.

mary angela douglas 27 march 2024

I DREAMED WE STOOD IN A CINEMATIC LIGHT

 

I dreamed we stood in a cinematic light

As though the pensive years had passed us by

And all the things I had stored up to cry about

Vanished like quick clouds or in flurries melting away

We looked at our hands new branching

As if we were made of apple blossoms

No longer encased in a weariness

That always seemed to say

You have seen better days

Astonished we brooked the hill

And noted no fading light

And the stars with ever increasing enchantment

Shown in their increasing magnitudes.

and scene by quaking scene.

Oh friends, can this be I whispered into the silver night

Is it true then we are really resurrected? 

mary angela douglas 27 march 2024

HAMBURGER HEAVEN

 

Sometimes we slip suddenly

Into immortal moments

In most unexpected places

Savoring the homemade dill pickles on our nostalgic hamburger

And the onion bun, the cheese a simple statement

So elegant just melted on top.

Hamburger days recall to us

Perhaps a glance out the window, of the greasy spoon

And the sun is setting behind the viridian green pines.

Just across the street.

God must be here the thought comes to you.

Here in Hamburger Heaven

Where my grandparents used to go.

Telling us that story again with its green awninged graces

The sun expiring a sudden flashpoint reflected in their faces.

 mary angela douglas 27 march 2024

PLAYHOUSE CONSIDERATIONS

 

 

PLAYHOUSE CONSIDERATIONS

Windows and doors and a roof of our own

Candy striped our delight playhouse oh so

Much we wished for you dear little space

A small porch with hydrangeas

A liveable space

For secretive children

Who still loved their house

But wanted their own

With its own Christmas mouse.

And there near the lilacs, by moonlight shaded

We’ll stack all the cushions

We happily raided.

mary angela douglas 27 march 2024

 

A LIGHT ROSE COLOUR IN THE CORNER OF THE SKY

 

 

 

A LIGHT ROSE COLOUR IN THE CORNER OF THE SKY

A light rose colour in the corner of the sky

Was my favorite artwork when I was a child

And even now it seems to me

Such a retro celestial scene

Pink chalk on a slate of pearl

That fades to silver

And grey.

mary angela douglas 27 march 2024

I KNOW I SHALL NOT BE AFRAID

 

 

I KNOW I SHALL NOT BE AFRAID

Broken winged we still fly on

In the golden riddle the fairytale one

And speak through a bird medley

Sky blue and clear

I know I shall not be afraid.

Heart string sundered but it sings on

Violin altered but lovely one

Music’s the same

Though we are undone

I know I shall not be afraid.

Indigo shadows across the moon

How will I know if my soul is in  tune

After capsizing all afternoon

But I know I shall not be afraid.

mary angela douglas 27 march 2024

 

SHOULD I FORGET YOUR VERMILLION SKIES

 

SHOULD I FORGET YOUR VERMILLION SKIES

Should I forget your vermillion skies

Your slate blue dusks

Your wildflowers by the side of the road

goldfinch parleys through the April trees

Springs bubbling up at the headwaters

In secret icy fountaining

May it be told of me nothing in chimes

Or that I was barely on earth.

mary angela douglas 27 march 2024

THE FISHERMEN AT THEIR NETS

 

THE FISHERMEN AT THEIR NETS

Cast as you cast away

All that has left you frayed

Cast that your dreams may be

Beautiful by decree

Seeing through faith instead

All that seems turned to lead

Cast that the miseries end

Cast that the joys begin.

Forevermore.

mary angela douglas 27 march 2024

 

SO AS THE GREEN LEAF SINGS THE SUN

 

SO AS THE GREEN LEAF SINGS THE SUN

so as the green leaf sings the Sun

so sing my unfolding emerald angels

coast the air that quickens all

and frosts despair

though in the evening of the greening

still I feel the transparent wave

neverending, just beginning

furling over any page.

Quenching, laving always saving

Alpha and omega, come.

mary angela douglas 27 march 2024

KAFKA

 

 

KAFKA

Stranded outside the Castle

But invited by the Crown

You tiptoe on a high wire

When you are on the ground

A melancholy persistence

Leads you on your rounds

But there Is no doctor here.

Dreams pool in your eyes

regarding the seasick world

you find yourself off balance

in an attitude of pearl.

By day you file insurance claims

And wrestle with the vagaries

At night you disappear

Into stories vast and clear

Contradiction’s pure historian.

You chronicle the goings on

In somewhat of a circus song

Your face droops with light

Pooled in a strange beauty

Who can say who you are or were

Extravagant in letters

always near when you are far.

subletted on the planets

in a tethered jar.

mary angela douglas 26 march 2024

THIS SMALL ISLAND OF PRAISE

 

THIS SMALL ISLAND OF PRAISE

This small island of praise

I offer to You through the waves

Through the green gold oscillation

Of its inland seas

For every least harbour

You have ever given me

Through strange afflictions

Where your quiet Mercy shone

So that I did not feel alone

So that I felt intensely

The cloudless comfort You would bring

Past all the white singeing of pain.

mary angela douglas 26 march 2024

 

HOW ARE YOU IN YOUR LATEST WAR

 

 

HOW ARE YOU IN YOUR LATEST WAR

How are you in your latest war

Holding on to a distant shore

Grappling with the open space

Cleared out by the bombs.

How are you in the storms blown by

Lifting the ceiling to the sky

Where will you stand

When the earth gives way

Plant your roots on a diffident day

Reorient the rubbled way

Stand in the ash

with fantastic praise

to raise the roof beams high.

Think of this that you still exist

Wage your hope with an unclosed fist

Carry no scars for who did this

Look for the gold of the Son.

mary angela douglas 25 march 2024

DREAM FREEZE

 

 

DREAM FREEZE

Orange freeze

Oh, indeed

Lemon squeeze

Citrus splash

Oh, at last

Frothy, cool

Thirst is soothed

Coconut blended

All is mended

For the children

At their best

Limes and cherries

Welcome guests

Oh how merry

Mango blast

Winter’s past

Florida freeze

All of these

Sweet libations

For the nations.

Toast the Spring

Winter leaving

Tangerine day

On display.

mary angela douglas 25 march 2024

POCKETS

 

 

POCKETS

I turn old pockets wrong side out

To find if there is hidden treasure

Shamrock leaf, or tiny egg of crystal

Forgotten token to a train I used to take

To work in the city on a clerkish day

What will I find to tide me over now

When so many things have been lost somehow

Maybe a fresh wind that blows

Maybe unmelted snow

From the hollyberry bush

At home.

mary angela douglas 24 march 2024

ACROSS A HIDDEN SKY

 

 

ACROSS A HIDDEN SKY

Striving to get our points across

We barter, word for word

Seldom ever heard or hearing

What if we stopped all our debates

What if we should quiet, wait

For one bright meteor

Across a hidden sky.

Rest to our souls this silence take

Lest in the fusillades launched

We should be wounded,by mistake,

And unrepairable.

mary angela douglas 24 march 2024

 

A CERTAIN ELEGANCE PERVADES

 

 

 

A CERTAIN ELEGANCE PERVADES

A certain elegance pervades

Old theatres of the American stage

Who knows what eloquence thundered there

Mystique and fancy blended there

The ghost of Ichabod Crane

A Maytime sweet declaiming

Of what was then so currently reigning

Why do my thoughts though

Scattered though they be

Only return to the one

Beyond all the once upon

Where Lincoln was shattered. ambushed

Heedless of the dire warning in his dream.

I cannot for the life of him flgure

How plays went on there to this day

In that theatre where he was slayed.

How no one thinks this strange.

mary angela douglas 24 march 2024

EATING ICED MELON UNDER THE MOON

 

 

EATING ICED MELON UNDER THE MOON

Eating iced melon under the moon

Seems like thIs should be a festival somewhere

And starlight refreshment, movement of the clouds

Over the moon like a jade flute played

The whispering of foreign trees

The whispering of foreign trees

Is like music you said to yourself in a dream

Where luna moths danced

And the children stayed up a long time

Listening to it was crabapple whispered

By faux historians

Irrelevant Imagination’s dowered stories.

nary angela douglas 24 march 2024

POETRY IS STRONGER THAN DEATH

 

 

POETRY IS STRONGER THAN DEATH

In long ago China it must be remembered

Court poets in exile sent messages into the ether

About the plum blossoms

How they scattered in the early snow

And somehow it was inferred

All beauty passing away bears this image.

And this I remember

I caught in the silver nets of dream

Through having read them in my girlhood

Above the rattling change of dynasties

And regimes.

mary angela douglas 24 march 2024

WHERE THE BEES STING NOT THE WILTING CELLS

 

WHERE THE BEES STING NOT THE WILTING CELLS

Where the bees sting not the wilting cells

Let us call on white peace like a prism

To irradiate it all

With coolness, with the soothing of light winds

With a touch of mint and the honey of time

Let wounding cease let the cool brook waters run

Let healing music come

Flowing over the rough stones

Stand on the softened earth

And be renamed.

mary angela douglas 23 march 2024

MY PERSONAL LIBRARY, DRIFTING APART AGAIN

 

 

MY PERSONAL LIBRARY, DRIFTING APART AGAIN

Like continents drifting apart

My lost books

The ice cracks on the floe

And half is going away from the other half

And friends long cherished will not come back, I know

My lost books have departed.

How many times formed and reformed

The glittering configurations

Of the books I loved, that angels led me to

In a time of renunciation to prove my love for God

I turned my narrow shoulders away

From them all.

And then my coral reefs grew and grew

And I was a happy dreamfed mariner among them

Then came the disconsolate years when I thought it all smooth

And one by one I sold the most beautiful for pittances.

Then fortune renewed, I bought them again

Out from a strange captivity

Suffered sometimes excoriating words

From those who couldn’t understand

How one small person could be so selfish

To accumulate them, or landlords quibbled

They’re a fire hazard

Or just looked very annoyed.

Now again I have to abandon so many.

Like a beaver I will repair the breach

The grim fairytales reaped

And after death, return a day or two to say

I loved them all, each volume seemed so full of grace

And now, I love them still.

And better than I did on earth.

mary angela douglas 23 march 2024

 

LOVELY THE HOUR WHERE SILENCE REIGNS

 

 

LOVELY THE HOUR WHERE SILENCE REIGNS

Lovely the hour where silence reigns

Over the valley and over the plain

Even the shadows hold curious light

Birds in their slumber still dreaming of flight

There in the hallowed wood

Where I once played

Memories of pines and the deep summer shade

Cheer me and douse me with cool summer rain

Dripping from leaves that are fragrant again.

Why should I fret through the noise of today

When easily I can step back away

Child of the woods and the quartz bright play

Charmed and beguiled

by the joy of late May.

Secretly secretly

Sweet hidden power

To rush in deep memory

Through earliest flowers.

mary angela douglas 23 march 2024

PIECEWORK

 

PIECEWORK

Weaving back the threads the moths have broken,

Time, dust, fire spoiled

The tear of the soul on the brambles

Foraging among the wild roses and

The castle no longer visible from the road.

Weaving back the threads it feels

Like I am spinning from myself

And wounding a self at its half life

Leaking light

A gold and silver I no longer hold 

Mysteriously dispensing

Bits of broken glass, stained glass

Kaleidoscope materials the muted cry of swans

The flowers trampled on the lawns in the violet dusk

You must you must continue I hear the ghosts confirm

As long as you have even one breath left

All beauty to discern, to call aloud

A scattering in the pale green of the smallest stars.

All the mind cannot contend with with things as they are

As former trees become more gnarled

Confused by their myriad rings

Bits of what I am or was I have woven back

Singing the meager songs I still have left to sing

Taking from one part to enhance the other

Losing this way to recover even one ray of light

Sewn into the fabric what is left of my dreams

I patch it all remembering so many predecessors

Until the seams shine with finally

disappearance, my half leaning on the blossoming wind.

Mary angela douglas 22 march 2024

WE WILL BE BREATHING ON OUR OWN

 

We will be breathing on our own

In the winds that gather from the far north

Tempered with Spring

Kite weather, we will say,

Laughing, and for the whole earth, imagine!

And oxygen will seem like gold to us

From the fir trees of remembrance

the air after storms

glitter with light;

the stars be fragrant.

mary angela douglas 22 march 2024